Well-Lived: Belgian Manor

Restoring a manor brings forth centuries of storied design.

When he was fifteen, Belgian antiquaire and designer Jean-Philippe Demeyer regularly cycled by Rooigem, a moated medieval manor just outside Bruges in East Flanders. Each time, he would stop to admire the manor's Tudor arch entrance to the beautiful brick and limestone buildings at the end of a lane of venerable poplars.

Oak cabinet, Demeyer. Antique Flemish pots.

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Poplar-Lined Lane

Although he had planned on a legal career, Demeyer's love and talent for houses and design took the upper hand, and he became an antiques dealer. In 1998, he opened a successful antiques and decoration boutique with fellow owners Frank ver Elst (artist) and Jean-Paul Dewever (restorer) in the chic Belgian coastal resort of Knokke-le-Zoute.

Demeyer with his black retrievers on the poplar-lined lane to Rooigem.

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Veranda

Destiny Discovered

Twenty years after he discovered the manor, Demeyer was reading the newspaper and found out the property was for sale: "It was like it was waiting for me." The trio decided to take on the challenge of restoring what they now believe was the pre-1400 hunting lodge of a wealthy Bruges family (with additions in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries), turning it into their design workshop, showroom, and residence.

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Centuries-old Building

What a challenge it was. "There was nothing—no water,no electricity, no gas. The house hadn't been lived in for thirty years," Demeyer explains. "It was sad and neglected."

The team transformed the interior, the designer says, "as if we were la noblesse appauvrie," or impoverished nobles. "You search in courtyards and building sites to see what you can find." A cast-iron radiator was one discovery. A huge block of Belgian bluestone from their garden became the kitchen sink. "Every time we plant a shrub, we find ten bricks," he says. "We could build a house with what we've found."

Glass plate, Henry Dean. Vintage Murano flacons.

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Preserved Plaster

Demeyer preserved the bluestone and terra-cotta floors as well as the plaster walls: "You really feel the hands that made them." He also added light switches on the ceiling, operated by tasseled ropes, to avoid cutting into patinated plaster.

Vintage light fixtures. Custom cabinet and bluestone sink.

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Eccentric Atmosphere

"The most important thing is not the furniture," he says. "It is the atmosphere." He mixed "antiques and eccentricities" in contrasting periods and styles--contemporary Italian woven chairs bask under Napoleon III iron chandeliers--with sofas of his own design, then spiced it all up with brilliant color.

In the three-room medieval part of the house, a spectacular geometric pointe de diamant grisaille was inspired by one in the tower of a medieval Bruges hospital. Demeyer had it painted on the walls of the beamed-ceiling dining room. Red velvet and Bruges lace frame a window. Gothic Revival chairs surround the table. Ambience is served with every meal.

Taking a cue from a kaleidoscopic 1940s Chinese rug, the library dazzles with lime walls, upholstery in terra-cotta velvet and gold and pink linen, blue-green velvet curtains, and glass in apricot, emerald, and red. "When the sun shines through the colored glass, it's wonderful," Demeyer says. "When nature has all these colors, why should interiors be white?"

"I dream of well-lived-in houses," Demeyer says. "There are so few." After five years of constant hard work on his own property, he adds with pride and a certain satisfaction, "I have brought back the life and soul of the house. And I did it almost more for the house than for myself."

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